Director Ed Zwick has already proven he can make respectable period actors out of Hollywood leading men. In 1989, he directed Denzel in his Oscar-winning performance in Glory; he returned to the 19th century five years later with Legends of the Fall, starring a long-haired Brad. But in his latest project, Zwick takes on something even more epic than the Civil War and the Wild West -- Tom Cruise. In The Last Samurai, Tom plays a mercenary hired to modernize the Japanese army who is ultimately seduced by the soldiers' ancient ways of living, loving, and, of course, sword fighting.

ESQ: Had you spent much time in Japan before making the movie?

EZ: I hadn't, but I have now. It was trip after trip, talking to Japanese screenwriters to do the dialogue, talking to historians, casting, working on the costumes and the fights. I may be the one person in America who most identifies with Lost in Translation.

ESQ: So why did you film in New Zealand?

EZ: The Japan of the 19th century is very hard to find in the Japan of the 21st century. The urban sprawl is difficult to beat back. Like Japan, New Zealand is a north-south volcanic island, and the topography is similar. It was easier to re-create old Japan than to try to find it.

EZ: A year at least. Preproduction was enormous and endless -- buying 200 horses and training them to fall safely, and finding 900 Japanese extras who could do martial arts and bringing them to a small, unfashionable New Zealand town. The New Zealanders were extremely gracious, but it was a little like the circus coming to town.

ESQ: Where can I pick up some of the armor used in the movie?

EZ: Ngila Dickson, who's our costume designer, worked with Weta, which is a firm in New Zealand that had done some stuff for Lord of the Rings. In November, they're going to decorate Barneys' windows with a bunch of the armor.

ESQ: Great -- chain mail will be the new black. I hope you saved some.

EZ: Well, keeping it in shape was sort of a Herculean undertaking. People were bashing the hell out of each other in it. As my special-effects guy says, "This is real time, real scale." Not to diss what anyone else does, but when I see these battle sequences in other movies that are all computer, I feel it.

ESQ: Ken Watanabe is incredible as the last samurai. Do you think America is ready for an Asian actor who does more than kung fu?

EZ: He towers over this movie, but I can't predict. We are still xenophobic in so many ways. How many parts are there for a Latino leading man or a black leading man? I think what will be extraordinary is that an American movie of this size will reveal Ken to a bigger audience in Japan.

ESQ: I don't want to start any trouble, but I met your wife a few months ago, and she said Bowling for Columbine was the best movie of the last five years. Haven't you made a couple of films in the last five years?

EZ: [Laughing] My wife has a very particular relationship to the film business. It's not that she undervalues it, but I think she puts it in its proper place. She definitely keeps me honest.